Minutes After Hannity Said Republicans Were Not Making Race An Issue In The Campaign, He Made Race An Issue

On last night’s (6/25/08) Hannity & Colmes, Sean Hannity, the white supremacist sympathizer, complained again about Barack Obama's recent statement that his race will be used against him in the campaign. “I can’t think of one prominent Republican of note that I know of that has ever brought up the issue of race,” Hannity insisted. But in a later segment on the same show, Hannity brought up the issue of race and used it to attack Obama. With video.

The latter discussion involved Ralph Nader’s comments that Obama “wants to talk white” and so avoids being a real champion to African Americans and their issues.

Then Hannity quickly moved to attack Obama for being too black. Turning to the Democratic guest, Jacques Degraff, Hannity said, “You know, Bill Clinton said, when Hillary was running in (sic) the nomination that Barack Obama played the race card against him and that we know from memos, he said, that they had planned to do so all along. Those are Bill Clinton’s words. Here’s my question. And then Barack Obama used the quote the other night in Jacksonville, you know, that 'They’re gonna try and make you afraid of me and Oh, by the way, he’s black.’ Do you think that was fair on Barack Obama’s part?”

Degraff said he didn’t think it was unfair.

Hannity continued, “Can you name one prominent Republican who’s brought up his race?”

Unfortunately, Degraff seemed caught off guard and didn't mention Hannity, himself or his pal, Rush Limbaugh.

For one thing, as Degraff, who is African American, must know, the race card being played is, as Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson put it, “largely confined to the shadow world of implication and coded language.”

But one of the least subtle race-card players in the campaign has got to be the race-obsessed Hannity. Here are just some of the instances where Hannity, whom I’d characterize as a prominent Republican, didn’t just bring up race but deliberately used it to smear Obama:

Hannity deliberately tried to paint Obama as a racist by trying to make a big deal out of the fact that Obama’s pastor praised “the anti-Semite and the racist, Louis Farrakhan.” Hannity “asked,” “Is that an issue we should care about in this campaign?”

Of course, Hannity did his best to make it one. Despite the fact that Obama repeatedly repudiated Farrakhan, Hannity repeatedly tried to tie Obama to him, each time highlighting Farrakhan’s racism.

On another show, Hannity and his partner in prejudice, Townhall.com’s Amanda Carpenter, tried to make political hay out of the fact that Obama and Farrakhan were depicted on the same cover of a magazine, the magazine of Obama’s then-church. “(Obama) goes to the Million Man March and is on the cover of a magazine with Louis Farrakhan, one of the biggest anti-Semites and racists in American history,” Hannity announced. Nor did he bat an eyelash when Carpenter said that Obama’s candidacy had raised “questions about the black church.”

It’s no surprise that Hannity would have overlooked these incidents in his zeal to accuse Obama of playing the race card. Hannity has a long record of attacking African Americans as racist yet defending whites accused of the same thing.